Families Demand Compensation for WWII Deportations

Posted on Aug 29, 2006

More than 200 families have threatened the French state railway with legal action if it refuses to compensate them for its role in transporting relatives to death camps during WWII. The railway companies argue they were forced to carry out the deportations, though a court in June sided with victims’ families.

BBC News:

The families intend to demand “compensation for the prejudice suffered as a result of [their relatives’] deportation - in livestock wagons, in inhuman conditions, knowing full well that people risked being murdered,” one of their lawyers said.

They plan to give the company two months to reply before taking the matter to an administrative court, he added.

Families’ requests are being sent ahead of a deadline on 1 September which marks the statutory limitation for filing petitions against the SNCF, he said.